Walter Cronkite

Watching the In Memoriam segment makes you realize what just how much star power and talent we lost this past year — from Walter Cronkite to Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze and many others.

We also experienced the “death” of “Guiding Light,” the venerable soap opera that aired its finale episode, after 72 years, last Friday.

The editors on our copy desk just informed me that Walter Cronkite, the television news legend, has passed away at the age of 92.

It immediately sent my mind rushing back to a few years ago when I had the chance to interview Cronkite — a conversation I still consider to be one of the highlights of my career covering television.

Our get-together covered a variety of topics, including the modern 24-hour cable news channels, the onslaught of blabber-mouth pundits, the waning influence of nightly network newscasts and even his love of sailing.

And then I had the audacity to ask him what he wanted people to say about him after he was gone.

His answer: “I want them to say, ‘He was someone who lived up to the principals of good journalism through the fairness and honesty of his coverage, and upheld those principles throughout his career.’ ”